Chapter 56. Lorena
lorena
“Lorena.”
I blink back my memories of William and Salma and what happened in that room—and when I look around, I don’t recognize where I am.
“Do you need medical attention, too?”
It’s Director Minaro speaking to me. We’re in an unfamiliar room, but judging by the two stretcher-like beds, it must be the nurse’s office. Trevor is lying back on a bed while the nurse tends to him, and Tiffany and Zach are sitting in plastic chairs, just like me.
“I’m fine,” I say.
“I would like to go over this one more time so that I can give Trevor’s parents an accurate account of what happened.
Salma did not tell any of you that her father was planning to pick her up a day early, and after Lorena found out, she came to tell the rest of you.
In his haste to reach Salma before the car left, Trevor fell down the stairs? ”
“Yes,” says Tiffany. It’s the first time I’m hearing this story.
“Well, the students are engaged in the afternoon activities you planned for them,” says Minaro, “and it seems like you all had a traumatic experience, so get some rest and join us for dinner. You have done an excellent job preparing this day.”
“Have—have you seen William?” asks Tiffany.
Minaro looks at me before answering. “Alas, I am not sure we will see him again. I was hoping to speak with Miss Navarro about that.”
“What do you mean?” asks Trevor, sitting up on the patient bed.
“Well, we have not been able to locate his official records. We are beginning to wonder whether he was actually a student at all … or a scam artist.”
We all exchange looks.
“As you might imagine, this opens the school up to potential scrutiny. Lorena, as you were closest to him, would you mind coming to my office to answer some questions?”
I have some questions of my own for the director.
“Absolutely.”
WHEN WE enter her office, I turn to Minaro with my arms crossed. “Who—or what—are you?”
“I am the guardian of the spell.”
I blink, taken aback by both the directness and mysteriousness of her answer. “Where is William?” I ask.
I remember him carrying me out of that room, away from Salma.
He told me to keep walking, and that’s when I found Trevor on the floor and my friends saying we needed to get him to the nurse’s office.
But the whole thing was a blur because I didn’t feel like I was there.
Most of me remained in that dusty room, on the floor with Salma.
“He is in death-sleep, along with the others,” says the director. “I have hidden them, so no mortal will stumble across them again. Not until the spell breaks, and I disappear.”
He’s gone then.
And so is Salma.
I lost them both.
An emptiness fills me that feels even worse than crying. It’s like a void opened in my chest, and it’s sucking all the world’s colors into it. “You knew,” I whisper. “You said I would lose both of them.”
“Do you believe in destiny?” asks Minaro, and I wonder what she means. “That even the powers of time can be altered for a single purpose? That the luckiest man who walks on this earth is the one who finds … true love?”
“Dracula,” I say, recognizing the quote.
“By falling in love with you, William did right by both humans and vampires,” says Minaro. “He has been fundamentally changed and will be a better leader one day for having loved you.”
I don’t even bother pretending to understand. I have a feeling this is all going to take a long time for me to process.
“Did you cut us off from phone service and Wi-Fi?” I ask her.
“I could not risk William’s exposure. It was important to keep him cocooned here while he worked everything out on his own. Now I will go so that you can say a proper goodbye to the last vampire.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. “He’s still awake—?”
The door to her office opens, and I turn eagerly toward him.
Only it’s not Will.
“Hey, Lore.”
I run into Salma’s arms.
The first thing I register is how cold and hard her skin has become and how much taller she has grown—I only come up to her collarbone. The cast on her arm is gone, as is any weakness in her constitution.
Her hands don’t press in when she hugs me, and I wonder if she’s not sure of her strength. When we pull apart, I look to Minaro, but she’s gone.
“How do you feel?” I ask Salma. She seems like herself, and yet she doesn’t. Her skin has taken on this ageless quality that makes her appear at once youthful and older. It’s hard to describe.
“Physically, indestructible,” she answers. “But emotionally … I feel less. I still miss my mom, but it’s like the grief I was carrying for her has lightened enough that it doesn’t hurt anymore.”
Someone else might be relieved for the reprieve, but I hear what Salma’s not saying. The pain was a reminder of her mom.
“Why didn’t you go into hibernation with the others?” I ask.
“Minaro said that because I wasn’t part of the original spell, I didn’t have to.
It was my choice. Death-sleep sounded too close to death.
Like Mom. William and the others were born centuries ago and take time for granted, but I’ve never had enough of it.
And, well … you’re everything I have left.
It felt wrong to not be around as you grow older and live your life, even if I can only watch from a distance. ”
Tears burn my eyes. “What do you mean? There are no other vampires around, so you can do what you want—”
“The Legion,” she says. “When William and I both disappear suddenly, it could raise red flags to them. Especially when no one ever finds a body or any trace of us again. Minaro said if I’m discovered, this whole spell, everything the vampires have sacrificed, will be for nothing.
So the only way I can stick around is if I’m dead—with no connections to my past.”
Sadness claws at my chest, and all I want is to find a way to keep her with me. But Salma is beyond my protection now.
“Where will you go?” I whisper.
“Everywhere,” she says, her face illuminating with excitement. “You know how much I’ve always wanted to do and explore, but I didn’t want to give up the time I had left with my mom. And I’ll send you postcards from everywhere I go.”
The tears feel like they’re flooding my face and clogging my throat.
“I never got to tell you about our moms’ biggest fight,” I say, the memory coming back to me.
“It was over your dad! They met him on the same night, and they both liked him, but he chose your mom, so my mom didn’t speak to yours for six months! ”
“Wow,” says Salma, and even though she makes a face of surprise, she doesn’t grip my arm or squeal or do any of the things she would’ve done as a human. And I realize what William meant about the dulling of emotions that comes with immortality.
The old Salma is truly gone.
I wish I’d told her this story when she was still alive.
“Will didn’t erase our friends’ memories,” says Salma. “He thought it should be our choice, yours and mine.”
It takes me a moment to decode what she said, like my brain has little processing power. “Okay,” I say, and this should be easy, since we’re used to running all our decisions past each other.
Except, for some reason, it feels hard.
“Do you want them to know?” she asks, and the question almost hurts because if she was still human, she wouldn’t need to ask it.
We both know that Tiffany won’t keep the vampires’ secret forever. Zach won’t, either. And Trevor is likely to follow in his father’s footsteps, because since learning William’s secret, he’s only grown more loyal to the Legion.
And yet—is any of that wrong? William and Salma may be special vampires, but will the rest of the species be like them when they return? Isn’t it right that some humans should be working on a vampire defense system?
“I don’t want to keep lying to my friends,” I say to Salma. “It’s going to be hard enough to live without you, but if I also have to carry these memories alone, it will crush me.”
The expression on her face is new, and in this moment, she has become a stranger to me, because I can’t read her reaction. Will her love for me win over her own interests? It saddens me to even be asking the question.
“Okay, then tell the others I’m sick and not coming back to school,” she says, and I’m glad to know that even though we’re no longer the same species, she’s still my Sal.
“Lore.” Her cold hand takes mine. “I’m sorry for saying you were letting me die.”
“I’m sorry for letting you die.”
We grin at the same time, but too quickly, she’s serious again. “And I’m sorry about you and Will.”
“You think the vampires will be back in my lifetime?” I ask.
“Time works differently for immortals. Could be another thousand years.”
Her prediction makes my heart sink. “What will you do alone all that time?”
“That’s a problem for next century,” she says, pulling me in for another hug, this time applying more pressure.
I know the reality of our parting hasn’t hit me yet because when it does, I’ll shatter.
“I love you,” she whispers, and when we pull apart, she’s gone.
THE NEXT morning is sunny, so Tiffany and I meet Trevor and Zach on the school lawns. We’re all waiting for the airport shuttle, and even though the grass is freezing, the sunlight feels nice.
Trevor tosses his crutches to the ground. His whole left leg is messed up, and the nurse did what she could for him, but he needs to go to a hospital. Yet he refused and said he would get it seen in Los Angeles.
Minaro wanted to call his parents. She offered to drive until she got service, but Trevor refused again. It almost feels like he’s trying to prove something to himself, and I remember William saying Trevor is seeking redemption.
Maybe this is part of his process.
“The fact that we’re alive must mean your guy pulled it off,” Trevor says to me as we all drop onto the grass. “The vampires are sound asleep.”
“I’m not sure we should come back here after break,” says Zach, reaching for the camera that isn’t hanging from his neck. “It’s not safe for us.”